Sense
by Samurai101
Summary: Alphonse speaks on the return of his lost senses, and the two that changed.::short drabbles::complete!::
1. Touch

When something is completely absent for five years, and then it comes back in one moment, it is mind-numbing. When my brother used the Philosopher's stone on me, and my body came back, so did every other sense I had lost. Touch crashed down on me hardest that night.  
I could feel the earth beneath me, and the sharp discomfort of stones as they jabbed into me. I could feel the air rush over my skin, and I could feel my fingers, toes, lips, legs, arms, and every other body part. I could feel air move through my mouth, and into my lungs. I could feel my chest expanding to make room for the air. I could feel my eyelids close over my eyes as they stung.

The next thing I felt was a hand on my head, and something wet hitting my face. Then I knew that my brother was touching me, making sure I was real. He was smiling at me. He had to carry me back to the run-down hotel we were staying in. My legs wouldn't work right. He wrapped me up in his red coat, which was scratchy, and warm, and carried me. It felt safe to have him carrying me, even when he stumbled, and nearly fell.

The clothes he had for me were too big, but that was all right. Soon after my brother had brought me back to the hotel, reality crashed on me, and I felt frantic. The dream-like state I had been in was gone, and I was afraid I'd wake up from a wonderful dream. I was afraid everything would disappear, and I'd be a suit of armor again. My stomach clenched, and I felt nauseated.

It took an hour for my brother to calm me down, and afterwards I didn't want to let go of him. After wanting to feel my brother's hand as he led me along, or just to be able to touch his shoulder, and feel it beneath my hand for five years. He was my assurance that everything was real. I was afraid something would go wrong. Nothing did.

First we went back to Central, and my brother got leave for a few months absence. I waited at the train station, shaken from the ride. I remember the sinking dread when it took my brother so long to get back, and then the excited relief that rushed through me when I saw him stomp into the station. I nearly knocked him off his feet with a hug. He yelped, but laughed, apologizing for taking so long.

Risenburg filled me with excitement. I refused to wear shoes, and walked barefoot to the Rockbell's. I loved the feeling of the sand under my feet, even though it hurt when I stepped on rocks. My brother laughed when I insisted on stopping at a stream, and splashing in it. He got wetter then I did.

Finally, after many detours, and nervous stops, we arrived at the Rockbell's house. Winry was waiting, she ran out, and stopped on the porch, her wrench raised and ready to throw. She didn't throw it. She dropped it, and nearly tackled me to the ground with a hug. She cried, and her tears tickled when they fell on my neck, and my shirt got wet. She wouldn't let go of me, even to hug my brother, and she dragged me into the house. Granny Pinako didn't hug me, but she did hit me with her pipe.

I thrived in Risenburg, and refused to wear shoes. I climbed trees, and memorized the feeling of rough bark under my fingers. I remembered how to swim, and how badly it hurt to stub a toe, or bang a funny bone. I learned how much sunburn hurt. I relearned how nice a warm cat was in my lap, and how cozy, and soft cats were. I also remembered how good it felt to hug people I loved, and just to touch them, and know they felt what I felt. That was my favorite thing to feel. It reminded me I was alive, and I was never going to be alone. People loved me, and they would always be there for me.

A/N: As said, this is a short collection of Alphonse regaining his senses. These chapters will be short, but hopefully likable. Please reveiw, because-  
3 reviews: update in two weeks

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10+ reviews: instant update the day after the tenth review is received!  
So, if you like it tell a friend as speed up the updates!


	2. Smell

When I was younger I never thought about how things smelled. I knew everything smelled, and that everything had its own smell, but I never really paid much attention to the smells themselves. I never realized how unique each smell was, and what it said about things, places, and people.

I remember the burnt, metallic smell that was the first scent I smelled in years. It was blood, and dirt, and metal. It burned my nose, and I was shocked. I sneezed a lot before my nose began to adjust. My mind was still reeling, even after I stopped sneezing. I could smell again. I could actually smell again.

Old familiar scents came back to me quickly enough when I smelled them, but a lot of smells were new to me. Resinburg's air, after the confining, coaly air of the train, made me smile. It was fresh, and clean, just they way I remembered it. It was late fall, and the air held the wonderful smell of wood smoke. I remember very clearly the first few breaths of air, and how they made me feel.

The air in Central was completely different from Risenburg. Central air smelled dirty, and was full of exhaust. It made me cough, but I still enjoyed the smells. Shops each smelled different from the streets around them, and the food shops were the best, or the worst. Every time I came out of a food shop I was dizzy, and I nearly passed out walking by a perfume shop. Everything was different, and wonderful.

People held their own smells, and I noticed them more then I ever had. Hawkeye smelled faintly of cinnamon, of gunpowder, and a little of clean dog. Mustang smelled like cologne, and smoke. Havoc reeked of cigarette smoke, and breath mints, and Fury smelled soapy. Granny Pinako and the area around her smelled strongly of pipe smoke, which was one of my favorite scents ever. Winry-Winry smelled like oil, grass, and spice all mixed together into one scent, unless she was going somewhere special, and then she wore perfume that smelled very softly green.

I couldn't go into Granny Pinako's kitchen for a month. every time I did my nose burned, and my head spun. The smells, even when no one was cooking, were very strong. When Winry made apple pie I could smell it from my room. It smelled wonderful. I could pick out almost every scent, and then, sometime during the cooking, all the smells blended together. She made it after I had gotten used to my body, and she brought a large slice of pie up to my room when she was done cooking the pie.  
Three weeks after I was restored my brother brought home a kitten, and handed it off to me with a sideways smile. I had forgotten how cats smelled. The clean, peculiar smell that all cats smelled like was wonderful, and I still think it is one of my favorite smells.

My favorite smell, however, is the first comforting smell after I was restored. It was the smell of my brother, when he picked me up, and held me close. The metal, earthy, sweaty, cat-like scent of my brother that made me cry. I had forgotten it, or, maybe. I had never known what my brother smelled like until that day.

**A/N:Okay, second chapter! Thanks for reveiwing, and the updating schedule depends on you. Late due to computer glitches!  
3 reviews-biweekly updates **

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	3. Taste

My first taste was the dry, almost metallic taste that everyone gets when they've been too long without a drink, or have just woken up. That dry, almost bland taste was wonderful. I laughed about it later, but it was wonderful to actually taste something again, even that awful taste. The second taste was water, and I nearly cried, It was wonderful to quench the feeling I didn't even know was thirst. It was wonderful to wash the metallic taste from my mouth, and actually taste water.

The third thing I tasted was toast. My brother had thought long and hard about the day I would have my body back, and he said that anything better then toast might overload my senses. Still, the toast, just bread cooked until it crunched, was enough to send me into a smile that nearly split my face, and made me laugh, and cry. I cried a lot after getting my body back.

I lived on toast, water, and very simple sandwiches until we reached Central. Then, after he had leave, my brother insisted on taking me to a restaurant and eating there. It was a simple place, and all I got was soup. It was wonderful, to say the least. I ate very slowly, savoring the taste. It was a beef stew, but it was only a little spicy.

My brother insisted that we get dessert. He got vanilla ice cream for me and, as I expected, my brother got chocolate ice cream. The first bite of ice-cream was sweet, almost too sweet. It was cold to, and it made my mouth tingle. My brother laughed at me, and I only ate half of the ice cream. My brother ate what I didn't.  
My first meal in Resinburg was a hastily made pasta with tomato sauce. Winry made it, and my brother complained that it was awful, but I loved it. I ate three helpings, and still had room for dessert. Dessert was a short cake that Granny Pinako said had been sitting around for a few days waiting for our return.

Winry started cooking a lot after my brother and I came home. She usually brought my food up to my room, or outside to me since I couldn't stay in the kitchen very long. She was amazed that I ate slowly, since my brother inhaled his food with swift mercy. She said I used to eat my food just as fast as my brother did.

I learned how different things tasted. I learned how a not really ripe apple tastes, and how a mouthful of cloth, or metal, or book tastes. Metal was my least favorite taste, along with blood. I hated the taste of blood, and I avoided it whenever I could. I remembered what fresh baked bread tasted like, and how a mouthful of air tastes.

My favorite taste was apple pie. Winry made it one day using Gracia's recipe. She smiled and said she always did as she promised. The pie crust was flakey and light. The apples were spicy, hot and sweet. I burned my tongue on them, and laughed. I never got tired of the sweet, spicy, warm taste of apple pie, and Winry never got tired of hearing me say I liked her pie.

A/N:Sorry, sorry, sorry! This took so long beacuse of a wasp sting, and the stomach virus. I'm so sorry! Review, because the more you review the faster this will go up!


	4. Sight

I never knew my sight was different as a suit of armor. I never realized how distorted things were to me. I never knew that as a suit of armor the world was bleached, and distorted. Things bulged and dipped where they weren't supposed to, and faces were distorted most of all. My mind corrected these mistakes, making me think they had always looked that way. It insisted there as nothing wrong with my sight, and that I could at least see normally.

I knew better later. At first I thought the transmutation had messed with my eye sight. Colors were bright, and vibrant. Things were different shapes, and their depth was altered. Everything seemed too real. It only added to the dizzy confusion of my mind. I didn't tell my brother until we have gotten on the train to Central. He stared at me as I explained the differences in my sight, and, with a choked look, laughed.

My vision was normal now, and not deformed as I had first thought. I latched into the idea with a startling intensity, and refused to let anything shake me from that conviction. I actually liked the way the world looked now, and I loved the way the shapes around me had changed. My brother's face seemed to match up to my memories better, and the sky looked less sinister than it had in years.

The only thing that I didn't like was my depth perception was off. I ran into things, and missed grabs for things almost constantly for a few days. It was frustrating to be so incompetent, and unable to help my brother as I had. Part of me yelled that maybe I had been better off as a suit of armor, and I should have never changed from that. I couldn't even see right anymore, and if my brother got into trouble then I couldn't help him.  
My brother was the one that had to help me now. He had to guide me around things, and for the first few days he had to even feed me. I felt useless and weak, and like a burden. My brother laughed off my frustrations, and, with a playful punch, said this was payback for all the times I had taken care of him in the past. He said that it was equivalent exchange for all the things I had ever done to help him.

He said it was equivalent exchange, but he knew neither of us believed in equivalent exchange anymore.

**A/N:Right, next-to-last chapter. Thank you the wonderful poeple reveiwed, and have been through-out the drabble!**


	5. Sound

Like my sight, my hearing was altered by being in a suit of armor. The only way I could ever describe it was everything had a tinny ring to it. Every sound, especially people talking, echoed unpleasantly, and made my head vibrate.

When I first heard my brother's voice I was shocked. The annoying sound was gone, leaving a high tenor voice in its place. The laugh, most especially was different. It was enjoyable, and made me laugh too. I had a hard time remembering my brother's voice. It was so vastly changed from what memory supplied, and what I knew it should sound like. It wasn't childish soprano any more, and neither was it alto with a tinny echo laced through it. It didn't fade off but ended sharply with each word, and it never hurt my head. It changed from sometimes almost bass to high-pitched enough to be soprano. I never remembered it doing that before.

Other people's voices were different too, and the sound was even more different. When I rode the train the shaking didn't make my head rattle against my shoulders, or grate the plates of armor together. There were no heavy steps to make the tinny vibration weave through me with every step. Instead there were vibrations I could feel.

It was easier to place some voices than others. Winry's voice came to me immediately when I heard it, and Granny Pinako's voice was equally recognizable. The one voice I struggled with the most was Colonel Mustang's voice. His deep tone had been vastly distorted by the echoes in the armor, and I was amazed he didn't squeak at odd times any more when he spoke.

There was, of course, also a sound I relearned to love; a cat's meow. Now, as a human, the noise was even more appealing, and sometimes even more piteous. Now, however, my brother couldn't tell me no, and Granny Pinako loved cats just as much as I did. Den, thank heaven, loved them too.

Tones had also been distorted. I missed the soft whisper of my brother's voice as he apologized, or the delight he radiated when he figured some complex problem out. I missed Granny Pinako's scolding tease as she beat us form the kitchen, and I missed Winry's happy giggles as she beat Ed in anything. Above all I missed the jubilant shout my brother issued when he burst into my room every morning, and pounced on my bed, proclaiming I was still there, and I'd never go away again.

**A/N: It's over. Yes, this was a very short piece, but it's over. Oh, many, many thanks to every reveiwer, thank you again and again. Al thanks you as well.**

**Sayonara minna-san.**


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